Hiroshima by John Hersey

Anyone familiar with my occasional blog posts on the books I'm reading know that I will, from time to time, read a particular genre (such as time travel or dystopia) or writer, such as Agatha Christie or Naguib Mahfouz for an extended period. August 06 is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima (the bombing of Nagasaki followed 3 days later) and it was my intention to read a number of ebooks dealing with the two bombings during the month of August. Due to a miscalculation on my part as to how long it would take for me to read a few ebooks, I began reading Hiroshima by John Hersey before the end of July.

In May, 1946, The New Yorker magazine sent journalist John Hersey to Japan to interview survivors of the bombing. The story revolves around six people who were in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. The original plan of the editors was to publish the story as a serial, but after reading Hersey's work, the editors decided to devote one entire issue to the work.

The issue sold out almost immediately; Albert Einstein is said to have ordered one thousand copies. The story was eventually printed as a book by Alfred A. Knopf and has never been out of print.

This book is absolutely a "must read".

Whose Body?

Being retired, I have quite a good deal of free time on my hands. Fortunately for me, I have several hobbies to occupy my time, one hobby being reading ebooks on my Kindle. Some might even say I spend an inordinate amount of time reading. One need only look at my monthly book lists to see that I read about 10 or 12 ebooks a month.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found several websites which allow me to download, without cost, more than enough ebooks to keep me in reading material. Another of my hobbies, or habits if you like, is to download any book that takes my fancy and store the mobi on a flash drive. I hesitate to give a number for the ebooks I have stashed away.

Normally, I will pick out several ebooks I'd like to read for the month and place copies of the mobi into a file on my PC. I'll transfer a few at a time to my Kindle.

I mentioned in an earlier blogpost that my original intention for July was to read four books by Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. I set the ebooks into my file, along with a few more ebooks by other writers that I planned to read in July. As I wrote before, I found Mahfouz' Children of Our Alley a very difficult book to get thru; I saw right away that I would not be able to finish all the ebooks I had set aside for July. I had wanted to read (or rather, re-read) The Magus by John Fowles, but I was sure it would not be a quick read.

As luck would have it, a Facebook friend came to the rescue. He mentioned that he had just finished reading Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers and by his description of the book, it seemed like the ideal read for me to finish out the month of July. I had managed to download and then upload to my flash drive several ebooks by Dorothy Sayer and it was just a matter of uploading Whose Body? to my Kindle.

In his post on the book, Larry D wrote,
First in the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series by Dorothy Sayers. Light hearted and well-paced, this clever whodunit is written in a style evocative of Wodehouse - not in a madcap humorous way, but with quick wit and memorable characters. Wooster and Jeeves wouldn't have been out of place. Looking forward to reading additional titles.

He was right. Lighthearted, well paced and clever is a perfect description. Like Larry, I have plans to read more of Sayers' work.......not in August, however. That month has already been set earmarked for reading books on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Additional Thoughts on the Work of Naguib Mahfouz

As I mentioned in an earlier post on the work of Naguib Mahfouz , the website thegreatestbooks.org lists what they believe to be the top six of his 34 novels:
Palace Walk - Palace of Desire - Sugar Street (from the Cairo Trilogy ) - Children of Gebelawi (aka Children of Our Alley ) Midaq Alley and Miramar .
At the time of that earlier post, I had finished reading the Cairo Trilogy and had begun reading Children of Our Alley . I had enjoyed the trilogy and I set out to read the other 3 books on the list.

Sadly, I found Children of Our Alley a drudge and a very difficult read. As I wrote in the earlier post,"Children of Our Alley has been described as an allegory of the interlinked history of the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The first four sections of the novel retell the stories of Adam (Adham), Moses (Gabal), Jesus (Rifa'a) and Muhammad (Qasim)".

Linking the four characters, Adham, Gabal, Rifa'a and Qasim to Adam, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad seems a bit of a stretch to me. The stories were set in 19th century Egypt and if I hadn't read elsewhere that the characters represented Adam, Moses, Jesus and Muhammed, I would never had picked up on that from the novel. Each story was pretty much a repeat of the previous story, with very little added. The novel isn't very long, but it took me 10 days to shovel my way to the end.

Even though I was disappointed with Children of Our Alley I went on to read Midaq Alley . I'm glad I did. It restored my faith in Mahfouz. I found the book to be better than any of the 3 books in the trilogy.

 There's an excellent review of the novel online - written in 2003 by Louis Proyect. It's a much better review than any I could write.

I'll be finishing up with Naguib Mahfouz with the sixth novel on the list - Miramar .

Bicycle Ride to Calabnugan

A friend of mine recently posted onto Facebook a few photos he had taken from the Calabnugan bridge. Seeing his photos, I was reminded of some photos I had taken from the same bridge and had uploaded to Google Maps. I've ridden my bicycle a few times to the bridge, but it occurred to me that I had never crossed over the river at that point. I decided to remedy that.

I looked on Google Maps and saw that there were a number of places that I could photograph for the website. These included the Calabnugan elementary school, the Calabnugan Barangay hall, the Tsuri Cafe and Pis-An Store.

My original plan was to go out on my bike early Friday morning and take the photos. Unfortunately, I discovered that the rear tire on the bike was flat. There's a vulcanizing shop within walking distance of my house, so I removed the rear wheel and headed that way. The inner tube was patched and I walked back home.

I've always had somewhat of a difficult time taking off and putting back on the rear wheel; dealing with the derailleur has always been a hassle for me. By the time I managed to get the rear wheel on, I was too hot and sweaty to do the 11 km (to and from) ride to Calabnugan. I'd put that off until Saturday morning.

Going out Saturday, I noticed that the derailleur and gear cables were in need of adjustment. I believed, however, that I'd still be able to make the planned ride. I was mistaken. I was able to ride, but I was not able to switch into a full selection of gears and getting to Calabnugan was harder than it should have been.

I turned around before getting to the elementary school; I'd have to postpone the full ride until after I had the cables and derailleur adjusted. After arriving home, I caught my breath and rode to a bicycle repair shop in Sibulan.

So, Sunday morning, with the bicycle back in 100% running order, I managed to complete my planned ride to the Calabnugan elementary school and take the photos I wanted for Google maps.The photos below are only a small sample of the photos taken.

 

A Few Thoughts on the Work of Naguib Mahfouz

It was while going over the Bokklubben World Library list of the hundred best books in order to find interesting books to read, that I discovered the Nobel Prize winning Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz.

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, the last two books I read in June were the first two books in Mahfouz' Cairo Trilogy (thulathia al-qahra) - Palace Walk (Bayn al-Qasrayn) and Palace of Desire (Qasr al-Shawq); the first book read in July would be the third book in the trilogy, Sugar Street (Al-Sukkariyya). The trilogy was written in the late 1950s - the events taking place between WWI and 1944.

The trilogy follows the life of the patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad 'Abd al-Jawad and his family across three generations. I was most interested in Mahfouz' description of family life during that period. Equally interesting was his writing on the practice (or lack of practice, in some cases) of Islam in Cairo, although I found myself at the computer quite often in order to understand many of the historical and political references.

The wikipedia article on Naguib Mahfouz lists his most well known work, aside from the trilogy, as Children of Gebelawi - other translations of the book give the title as Children of Our Alley. I had downloaded the ebook as Children of Gebelawi . Unfortunately, this ebook proved to be defective. I was able to learn quite a lot about the early publication of the book (and it's initial banning) from the preface of the ebook, although the text of the actual novel was simply unreadable. I removed the defective ebook from my Kindle and uploaded a copy of the Children of Our Alley ebook.

Children of Our Alley has been described as an allegory of the interlinked history of the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The first four sections of the novel retell the stories of Adam (Adham), Moses (Gabal), Jesus (Rifa'a) and Muhammad (Qasim). Some have claimed that the character Gabalawi represents God (Allah) - an interpretation which Mahfouz rejected. I'm only part way thru the book, and I can understand Mahfouz' rejection of that idea.

I have two additional books by Mahfouz to go into the queue following Children of Our Alley - Midaq Alley and Miramar. These six books make up his best works according to thegreatestbooks.org.

Reading List For June, 2022

A new month has arrived and so the time has come to post another monthly book list. This list contains twelve books - the most since the March Reading List.

I didn't post a review for every book on the list (there are links for those I did review), but I have to say that I found all 12 of the books read in June to be worthy of recommendation.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I enjoyed the 3 novels written by Japanese writers - Kenzaburō Ōe, Shusaku Endo, and Naoya Shiga. The genre is a favorite of mine.

 A pleasant surprise for me was my discovery of the Egyptian writer, Naguib Mahfouz. One of his novels was recommended to me by the website where I get most of the books I read - 1lib.ph. The wikipedia article linked to gives Mahfouz' most famous novels as The Cairo Trilogy and Children of Gebelawi (also known as Children of Our Alley). The last two books on this list are the first two books in The Cairo Trilogy . The third book in the trilogy will be the first book I'll read in July. (Children of Gebelawi will be the 2nd book I'll read in July.)

So now, the list -

The Silent Cry     by Kenzaburō Ōe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn   by Mark Twain
Created Equal: The Painful Past, Confusing Present, and Hopeful Future of Race in America   by Dr Ben Carson
The Caged Virgin   by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Mortality   by Christopher Hitchens
Scandal   by Shusaku Endo
Einstein's Dreams   by Alan Lightman
The Founding Myth:Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American   by Andrew L Seidel
A Dark Night's Passing   by Naoya Shiga
Black Water   by Joyce Carol Oates
Palace Walk   by Naguib Mahfouz
Palace of Desire   by Naguib Mahfouz